VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2JUNE 2009

TALES FROM THE SPRING TRIP

Story and photos by Texas Blues member Sam Peterson

This year was my fourth in a row makingit to the Bridge for a live Chelsea match,and I have to say there has never beenany danger of this annual eventbecoming less of a thrill than it was theﬁrst time.

No matter how many games Iwatch on telly or via online scoretrackers while I'm stuck at work, there is just no comparison to the real thing.

Standing in the Shed Upper, watching asthe seats ﬁll up or joiningthe cheers as the boyscome out for theirwarmup, I getgoosebumps every singletime.

It's a horriblecliche, but being at theBridge really is magic.

Ifeel so incrediblyfortunate to have hadthese experiences, andeven if I never make it toanother Chelsea match(Zola forbid!), I'll alwayshave some truly brilliantmemories.

I owe theTexas Blues/Chelsea in America amassive thank you for introducing me tothe Spring Trip ﬁve years ago--you'vechanged my life!This year my match was the Fulhamgame on May 2nd.

Everyone knows howthat turned out, so I'll only highlight thetypes of things you don't see in matchreports -Florent Malouda's new hairstyle,for instance.

I love the lad, andapparently his changing 'do is positivelycorrelated with renewed goalscoring, butreally, Flo, what's with the topknot?

Youlooked like a pineapple.

Or as they sayacross the Channel, ananas.

I had anexcellent view of this style faux pascourtesy of my binoculars, so everyonein our area had a good laugh.

Butseriously, Flo can wear his fro in neongreen corkscrews for all I care if hekeeps playing the way he has since he'sbeen ﬁt, which, incidentally, has beenthe subject of much debate.

For thosewho aren't aware, Flo had some teethsurgery issues on top of recurringmuscle problems that kept him frombeing at his best for large parts of histime at the club.

Now that he's ﬁnallyfeeling good we're seeing a return to thepromise he showed when he ﬁrst came,and I say, 'Allez, Monsieur Ananas!'Another thing that wasvery apparent at thisgame was the fantasticconnection among ourthree French-speakerson the front line.

Floand Didi are long-timemates and it shows, butthey seem to haveembraced Nico as welland we're reaping thebeneﬁts on the pitch.

They do shout at eachother in French, whichmust be confusing toopposition defenders.

Itwas really nice to see them all score(though Didi's ﬁrst was incorrectlydisallowed for o

side--stupid linesman!)and celebrate the birth of Didi's fourthchild together.

It stinks that televisionmatch coverage usually misses that sortof thing, which really highlights thespirit and togetherness of this group of players.

Journalists have questioned itat times this season and last but I knewbetter because I've seen how these boysinteract for four years.

They are aChelsea family, and that's probably whythey've been able to do well even whenthe club itself is in turmoil.Apart from some slick football, nicegoals, and our blossoming FrenchConnection, this match was special forthe occasion of our Captain Fantastic's400th appearance for the Club.

They

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•Tales from the SpringTrip•Notes from theChairwoman•FA Cup Returns to theBridge•Chelsea PlayerChronicles•June Dates toRemember•5 Questions For....•Match Report from theEmirates•Season Summary•News from Sky Sportsand the ChelseaWebsite

THANKS, GUUS!

On behalf of Chelsea in America- thank you Guus and Ray!

CONTRIBUTORS:

A big thanks to everyone whohelps make the CIA Bluesletterpossible.Editor: Jamie EdwardsChairwoman: Beth WildLogo and Graphics: Raciel DiazDates to Remember: Tel StevensCIA Crest done in collaborationwith Who Are Ya Designs -www.whoareyadesigns.comWant to contribute or make asuggestion? Send Jamie anemail at newsletter@chelseainamerica.com!

DEEP FROM THE HEART

NOTES FROM THE CHAIRWOMAN

PAGE 2

WHEN JOHN WENT UP TO LIFT THE FACUP, WE WERE THERE, WE WERE THERE!Okay, maybe not really there, but in ourhearts I know each of us was surewishing we were, and if we weren’t Iknow most of us were with fellow Bluessinging and cheering our team on tovictory yesterday and wasn't it brilliant! Ihope everyone had as wonderful a Cupday as I did!

So with John and the team lifting thecup, that marks the end of the season,which always makes me a bit sad. A timeto look back at all we have done andmaybe didn’t do, the good and the bad,and the memories shared with Bluefriends. This one had some realbenchmarks for me personally, andthough it o

ered all of us some trialsand celebrations, it wasn’t a bad seasonover all. So what does a hardcore Bluessupporter do when the summer seasonhits? Well, if you want a list tune into thepodcast from May 25th as it is one of the many categories of thoughts Dannyand I went over, so maybe it will giveyou some ideas. And what a great way toﬁll that “missing” two hours in thesummer, listening to a podcast or two.There are so many out there, includingthe legends ones.

But for me, and many others, thesummer will be ﬁlled with planning forthe summer tour . . . and what will yoube doing in the days between the 18thand 26th of July? I hope you are joiningus! For all information on tickets, when,where, what else we are doing, how toget there, where to stay and loads more,follow the Summer Tour link onwww.chelseainamerica.com We have somuch up our sleeve it is just going to bethe best summer tour ever!!!!

I want to remind everyone if you haveNOT ordered your tickets in our specialarea, you need to hurry up! We have torelease those unsold tickets back to thepromoters soon, so if you haven’tordered your tickets and don’t do sosoon, they will be gone. Also if you aretraveling and need accommodations,please check out the great hotel dealswe got. We are sharing these deals withnon-members as well. We again onlyhave a limited time to run the promotionthe Sheraton has o

ered us on hotels atall four venues, and honestly they arevery good value! Do not delay in bookingyour rooms! If you are worried aboutthem charging your card, they don’t. Thereservation only holds the room untilyou check in and then they will chargeyour card. So please support thisinitiative. For every 50 rooms we bookwe get a free room, which we will use tohouse a legend, and that cuts ourexpenses down. Just go to the CIAwebsite, click the Summer Tour banner,ﬁnd the venue you need and click HotelInformation.

One of the biggest parts of our summertour plans is our sponsoring of twoChelsea legends,

Tommy Langley

and

Clive Walker

, along with ChelseaTVpersonality

Neil Barnett

to join us at allfour dates! It should be great fun, andthey are looking forward to the tour aswell, more than you know. As our gueststhey will be around and involved in allour activities! But it isn’t free to bringthem over. To that end we have our“armies” - one being the PCB and theother being the TXBlues - working hardraising funds to cover this expense. Weare selling extra tickets in the Chelseaend (not in our section) to football lovingfolks in their area. And I want topersonally thank everyone for theire

orts that has raised their hand andgot stuck in selling tickets. They havebeen getting to bars, arenas, soccershops and youth soccer organizationsthroughout their area and getting theword out. I want to especially mentionTaylor and Taylor in North Texas whoyesterday, after the Cup ﬁnal, started amassive texting campaign to every youthplayer they knew, whether they playedwith them or against them, andmanaged to sell 150 tickets yesterdayalone! So many are getting involved herein North Texas. Charles spent the dayand into the night texting friends andfriends of friends and sold over 50tickets. Tel and Amy did the hard job of leaving the Storm Cellar and headingback to Decatur, stopping at every pubbetween here and there to make sure aposter was up. I heard it was thirstywork, and their e

orts were arduous andI am sure will pay o

! Kelley from OK is

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Spring Trip, continuedfrom Page 1

did a little presentation before the gamethat I sadly failed to capture on camerafor cheering, and then after the match JTclapped all the fans and gave his shirt tosome lucky child in the stands.

I hopehe feels as proud to see the "Captain,Leader, Legend" banner up in MatthewHarding every game as we all are to havehim as our skipper.

Fantastic defender,fantastic champion for Chelsea, andfantastic bloke.

We're so fortunate tohave him.Speaking of fortunate, I can't stressenough what a privilege it is to watch alive match in the company of fellowChelsea lovers.

It's such a pleasantchange from having to share a pub withpoxy plastic ManU, Liverpool, andArsenal "supporters" who only turn upfor big games and possess thefootballing knowledge of a wet noodle.

Nothing beats shouting at theincompetent o



cial and cheering at theboys when they can actually hear you,and of course the best part is the songs.

Obviously we had Liquidator and Blue isthe Colour before kicko

, then duringthe match I remember Super Frank, JT'ssong, Didier Drogba Lalalalala, We're theWest Stand/Middle/East Stand of theShed, Ten Men Went to Mow, Carefree,Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea, Blue Flag, digsat our neighbors with You're Only Herefor the Chelsea and There's Only OneTeam in Fulham, Que Sera Sera, andeven We're Going to Rome (ill-advised,in my superstitious opinion!).

Thetopper, however, was Zigger Zagger.

Ayoung bloke several rows down from uswas leading it, and he was so drunk thatby the end he could barely stand andwas slurring out something more akin toZiiiiihhhhhhhhl Zaaaaaahhhhhjfhkajhkl!

It was hilarious, and credit to him forkeeping it up all match.

I don't knowhow he managed to sustain that volumewhen he looked like he should bepassed out under his seat!

In any caseit's very impressive hearing that manypeople belting out Oi Oi Oi and the restof the chorus in unison.

I'd like to thinkit helped the boys put on such a goodperformance.

The match was my last bit of Chelsea forthis trip, but earlier in the week thegroup had a nice dinner at the Butcher'sHook, where it all began, and of course Ihad to visit the Megastore.

Budgetissues kept me from buying anything,but I caught up on all the magazines andprogrammes and learned that SalomonKalou is a wrestling fan (what???), JT'steam won the latest paintball excursion(in which Guus participated as well!),and

Michael Essien is superhuman.

Wait,I already knew that last one...After theMegastore I went to check out the photowall by the stadium entrance and get mypicture taken in the chair as part of thesquad.

have to say that up close thatphoto is terrible!

Guus and Ray's headslook like they've been photoshoppedover Scolari and co., and the whole thingis really grainy, but it was fun anyway.

Plus I had a good laugh at a group of Italian fans taking "action shots" with thesingle life-size photos of their favouriteplayers.

They'd bought a ball and weretaking turns posing with it as if theywere contesting headers with Riccy orslide tackling Joey.

A couple of themhad some decent skills, too, even if theirdesigner jeans and croc-skin shoes wererather letting them down!All in all it was another amazing Chelseatrip, and really the only thing that wouldhave made it better was getting justicein the Barca game.

I'm leaving that nighto

to avoid souring the report.

Besides,I don't want to risk UEFA ﬁning Chelseasome more.

Apparently it's a heinouscrime to speak out against corruptionand incompetence even when it's theblatant truth, so I won't share mythoughts on the disgusting farce thatthe Champions League has become.

Oh...Ultimately it doesn't matter.

We Chelseasupporters know we follow the bestteam in the world, right?

So until nextspring, chins up, sing up, be proud, andCAREFREE!!!

The San Antonio Bluesflag does somesightseeing....

Sam shows off the flag duringher trip to Paris!

JUST A REMINDER....

Saturday, July 18 - Seattle vs.Chelsea at Qwest Field (Seattle,Wa.)Tuesday, July 21 - Chelsea vs.Inter at the Rose Bowl (Pasadena,Calif.)Friday, July 24 -AC Milan vs.Chelsea at M&T Bank Stadium(Baltimore, Md.)Sunday, July 26 - Chelsea vs. ClubAmerica at Cowboy Stadium(Arlington, Texas)